January 30, 2005 - Lesson: Matthew 18.10-14

Sermon Title: The Loneliness of Lostness

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INTRODUCTION:

One fine day in heaven, Jesus Christ decided he was lonely. He hadn't seen his earthly father in a looooong time, and he had no idea if the kindly old man had made it to Paradise.

He was walking along, looking about, when he spotted an elderly man sitting on a golden bench, sobbing as if his heart would break! Jesus immediately sat down next to the guy and asked what the matter was.

The old man raised his head and sobbed, "I'm looking for my son!"

Jesus was startled. "Tell me, was your son really your biological son?"

"No...he wasn't. But he always wanted to be like all the other boys!"

"Well, was he...nonhuman...sort of?" Jesus leaned forward eagerly to hear the answer.

"Well, he looked human enough...but he wasn't...really."

Jesus was very excited. "And are you...a carpenter?!"

"Yes...I was."

"Is your name Joseph?"

"Well...translated, it is, I think..."

Jesus threw his arms about the old man. "JOSEPH! FATHER!!"

The man wrapped Jesus in his arms and cried in joy, "Oh, PINOCCHIO!!"

  1. This story is a little over the top, yet it is a form of humor.

  2. It contains a bit of insight and truthfulness.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. The world can be a lonely place.

    1. Charles Schulz reflected this opinion in a Charlie Brown Cartoon.

A Peanuts cartoon has little Linus afraid to be alone in the library.

Charlie Brown tries to explain to him that everyone is lonely in some place or other.

Where is that place for you? Linus asks.

Charlie ponders the question for a moment, then answers: Earth.

  1. There are two feelings won't seem to go away, and we've all felt them. (1)

    1. In the lonely moments, you know there's a relationship you don't have that you're supposed to have...and you think maybe it's a best friend...a boyfriend...a girlfriend...a husband or wife...a close family.

      1. But every relationship leaves you with this hole in your heart where "Somebody's missing."

      2. In a way, we spend our whole lives looking for that person.

    2. Then there's the other feeling--"Something's wrong"

      1. "Something's wrong"...with my world...with people in my family...with me.

      2. There's too much hurt...too much "me first"...too many masks.

      3. Something isn't right, but we just can't find it or fix it.

      4. Someone is missing...something is wrong--but it doesn't ever have to be that way for you again.

    3. Put yourself in the place of a 12 year old girl.

A woman was sitting at home one night, when the phone rang. She glanced at the clock and realized it was long after midnight--who could possibly be calling? It had to be an emergency; maybe her mother was sick or there had been an accident of some kind; she raced to the phone.

She was torn equally between anger and relief when she answered, because it was no one she knew--just a wrong number. The caller at the other end of the line sounded very young. The woman rather brusquely informed the caller that the number she'd dialed wasn't the correct one--and was seconds away from hanging up--when that young, uncertain voice said, "Wait--please!" And so she didn't put the phone back into the cradle.

"What is it?" the woman asked shortly.

The caller's voice broke. "I'm all alone and it's dark--please don't leave me."

Ashamed of her rudeness, the woman felt a warm rush of pity. She talked for two hours with this stranger, this 12-year-old girl who was home alone at night.

After her mother finally got home (she'd run out of gas and had no cell phone), they said goodnight.

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  1. How does one relate to the lost and lonely?

Anyone Need A Friend? At Craig's List, Looking To Avoid the Table for One By Libby Copeland, Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 18, 2004; Page D01. washingtonpost.com

"To read these queries is to realize how needy people are, even if they express it only under a cloak of Internet anonymity. There are people on Craig's List who want to see movies with you, go dancing with you, take trips to Atlantic City with you, if only you will e-mail them. There is a sense that it doesn't really matter who you are, that anyone is better than no one, that no fate is worse than being alone.

"Imagine the desolation of the guy in Ashburn, who writes, near midnight on a Saturday, 'Looking for some conversation to help pass the rest of the night,'

or

"the desperation of the woman in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan who posts 'help I need valium' at 5:25 a.m.

"A 22-year-old guy in Arlington writes a message at 8:18 on a Friday night: 'New in town -- anybody out there without plans tonight?'

Anybody at all?

She continues:

"Scientists have studied loneliness and found it may be bad for you, something about stress and blood pressure. If that's true, then modernity is bad for you, because there's something quintessentially modern about the way we experience loneliness: living alone, orbiting each other in bars, nursing cold coffee in cafes, checking our voice mail and finding it empty. You phone your mother in Fort Lauderdale and she talks about her second husband and her book club, and you realize when she says, "How are you?," that she doesn't really want to know."

    1. I remember the lyrics to a song sung by Andy Williams

Lonely Street (2)

Where's this place called "Lonely Stree-ee-ee-eet?"
I'm looking for that lonely street
I've got a sad, sad tale to tell
I need a place to go and weep
Where's this place called "Lonely Stree-ee-ee-eet?"

A place where there's just loneliness
Where dim lights bring forgetfulness
Where broken dreams and mem'ries meet
Where's this place called "Lonely Stree-ee-ee-eet?"

Perhaps upon that lonely street
There's someone such as I
Who came to bury broken dreams
And watch an old love di-ie

If I could find that lonely street
Where dim lights bring forgetfulness
Where broken dreams and mem'ries meet
Where's this place called "Lonely Stree-ee-ee-eet?"

Where's this place called "Lonely Stree-ee-ee-eet?"

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    1. These are not bad people.

      1. Can we say without oversimplification they are simply lost and lonely?

      2. They are people like a plant with a pot over it.

      3. They need something or someone who can bring them relief and life.

      4. Are they different from the disciple, and the rest of the crowd who are listening to Jesus?

    2. It is obvious that they are turned off to Jesus.

      1. They have guardian angels but they can neither see nor hear them.

      2. I rewrote the 23rd Psalm that might be understood from their point of view.

Psalm 23, NRSVA (revised)

1The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in parched pastures;
he leads me beside polluted waters;
3 he disturbs my soul.
He leads me in dangerous paths
for his name's sake.

4Even though I walk through the brightest valley,
I escape no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff--
they discipline me.

5You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with trouble;
my cup is half-full.
6Surely doubt and confusion shall follow me
all the days of my life,
so I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
my whole life long?

    1. How did the roles become reversed between the Good Shepherd and the hireling?

      1. John 10.1-22 Jesus as the Good Shepherd

      2. Read and exegete to a small degree.

    2. The good shepherd leaves the 99 on the in the pasture on the mountain and goes in search of the one who has become lost.

      1. The lost one is of great value.

      2. The lost one needs the shepherd.

John Mogabgab, in Fear Not, writes (3)

The story is told of a seeker who met Jesus on a lonely road. Lord, inquired the pilgrim, after all the people had been fed with the bread and fish, you said to your disciples: 'Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost' (John 6:12). What are the fragments that must be gathered up so that nothing will be lost? Jesus gazed at the wayfarer a long moment and then answered: The fragments are your fears, which multiply like the loaves and fishes and fill more baskets than you can carry by yourself. These must not be lost. Instead, they must be brought to me, so that I may bear them with you. In this way, nothing that is part of you will be left unfound.

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CONCLUSION

  1. The Christian is one who finally realizes that even in loneliness there is presence.

    1. One is never truly alone.

    2. The presence of Jesus Christ mediated by an angel or the Holy Spirit is always present.

    3. We become lost and cannot find our way home.

    4. Jesus provides the means to help us be restored to our rightful place and our rightful minds.

Anne Lamott writes in Traveling Mercies (4)

"When [my pastor Veronica] was about 7, her best friend got lost one day. The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn't find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until finally she saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, You could let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.

"And that is why I have stayed so close to mine - because no matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, and hear their tawny voices, I can always find my way home."

    1. The sheep is lost because it strays.

    2. We are lost because we stray.

    3. The sheep is unable to find it's way home.

    4. With help, we can find our way home, but we have to desire to be home.

    5. Trust in the good shepherd.

1.Ron Hutchcraft, "Yours for life!" Ron Hutchcraft Ministries Web Site, Gospelcom.net. Retrieved December 19, 2003.

2. Words and Music by Carl Belew, Kenny Sowder, and W.S. Stevenson. (Transcribed by Ronald E. Hontz [ronhontz@worldnet.att.net])

3. John Mogabgab, Fear Not, Weavings, March-April 1999, 2.

4. Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (New York: Anchor Books, 1999),5.

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